


Crowded Loud and Crimson Was My View From the Pit

by zuotian



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Epistolary, F/M, Interviews, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, Politics, Revolution, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Unreliable Narrator, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuotian/pseuds/zuotian
Summary: Set in an America overtaken by Chinese influence, evidence of the previous rebellion survives only in a series of audio recordings. The narrator, Eric Cartman, recounts the rise and fall of Crimson Dawn, the political movement the band inspired, and the personal relationships he shared with each member.You asked me for the story. The story of Crimson Dawn. The story of the revolution. But this isn’t that story. This is my story. And I’m going to tell it however the fuck I deem it to be told.There was a time when my friends weren’t state sanctioned clowns, religious fanatics, or second-rate revolutionaries. When the love of my life hadn’t yet faked his own death and went into hiding. These were the days when America was still America. As Americans, we assumed nothing too bad would happen. The recession would pass. The war would never reach our shores. We still had the naivety to believe in something as dumb as rock and roll--and the gall to think it’d make a difference.[Accompanying playlist, updated per chapter.]
Relationships: Eric Cartman/Kenny McCormick, Kyle Broflovski/Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski/Stan Marsh (Unrequited), Stan Marsh/Wendy Testaburger
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _Crimson Dawn’s conception was inspired by the eradication of American society; its demise coincided with the end of the world._
>> 
>> _Some people would have you believe we were the last vanguard against tyranny. Maybe at one point we were. That was our intention, at least. We considered ourselves especially equipped to save the country, seeing as we spawned from the same root as its tyrant-in-chief. Good versus evil. Us versus them. Light versus dark._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Punk songs, I thought that they were different  
>  And I thought that they could end it  
> No, no it was a deception  
> Well, the number of tears  
> And the number of beers were dried out and accounted  
> For a number of years  
> But these days I fear that my window was just a reflection  
> Still, you think that you're not a servant  
> You think that you can avoid  
> The stylish institution, worshiping illusions  
> Things you thought you could destroy  
> Oh, crowded loud and crimson was my view from the pit  
> I was wild, I was weird, I was shackled to it_
> 
> [Pretty Machines - Parquet Courts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QP8sFmZgAg)  
> 

[This audio interview was conducted in an undisclosed location deep within the Rocky Mountains. Burn upon listening.]   
  
Crimson Dawn’s conception was inspired by the eradication of American society; its demise coincided with the end of the world. 

Some people would have you believe we were the last vanguard against tyranny. Maybe at one point we were. That was our intention, at least. We considered ourselves especially equipped to save the country, seeing as we spawned from the same root as its tyrant-in-chief. Good versus evil. Us versus them. Light versus dark. 

I never bought into that whole shtick. Two diametrically opposed forces originating from the same womb, both alike in indignity. It’d end in a stalemate or mutual destruction. I was right, of course. But nobody ever listened to me. 

I haven’t talked to any of the guys in years. Not since Kenny up and disappeared. Butters totally dropped off radar. He was living in one of those Catholic communes last I heard. Jimmy and Stan have their own gigs, obviously. Jimmy didn’t surprise me. Stan, though--way out of the blue. He believed in the cause more than any of us. Maybe that’s why he jumped ship. 

Kyle’s still throwing tantrums--in Stan’s honor, no doubt, the fucking moron. It’s all for show. Kyle only ever cared about keeping up appearances. The marches he holds aren’t nothing but a conga line for the masses. Why do you think nobody’s put a stop to them? They don’t count for shit. 

An instrument of resistance cannot survive without a system to combat. A system has order, limbs to cut off, weaknesses to exploit. What’s in place now is not a system. It’s transcendent. It’s exceeded the parameters of everything that came before it, turned into a machine so omnipresent as to be practically indiscernible. The dark minutia of the government has permeated our daily lives with such totality that broad daylight is no longer a deterrent. The sun’s gone black and nobody gives a damn. 

There’s no glimmer of hope to be found. You and me are sitting here speaking freely isn’t a good sign. We aren’t the seeds of a new rebellion, but the compost of the old. I’ve got fifteen international bounties on my head. It’s only a matter of time till I look down and see a red dot on my chest. After that it’s all over, unless Kenny decides to crawl out of the underground once I’m gone. I hope he will. He’ll know when I’m dead, because I’d know if he was, and that’s why I know he’s still alive. Plus, sentimentality aside, my execution will be televised. 

I’m already talking about him too much, you see? I’ll get into that later. The personal stuff. I don’t particularly want to, but it’s important. Every decision we made, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, influenced the events to come. And this is supposed to be for the sake of posterity, right? Something to pass down the annals of time. 

So, like I said before, Crimson Dawn paralleled America’s dissolution. Both started innocently enough. We were just some idiot punks wanting to form a rock band. Our Glorious Leader was still known as Herbert Garrison, elementary school teacher turned president. If you want a full picture, you have to start at the beginning. And it all began in South Park. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posted this fic once, chickened out, deleted it, and am now posting again because fuck it. chapters will be short, sweet, and sporadic. this is a huge departure from my usual stuff but i'm having a blast.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _I’m getting ahead of myself. I do that a lot. Everything’s a big blur. And I don’t get much opportunity to talk about it. Whenever I do, there’s stuff I forgot I’d forgotten. Like how cow shit smells. It’s different from your usual brand of human feces. It used to stink up the whole town, especially on those warm, increasingly not-so-rare days when the ice thawed. I haven’t seen a cow in years. I haven’t ate real meat in longer. It’s nothing but Goop, anymore. They say celebrities have a secret meat market. If Stan and Jimmy are splitting a ribeye right now they can go to hell._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Well see what you want to see, you should see it all  
>  Well take what you want from me, you deserve it all  
> Nine times out of ten our hearts just get dissolved  
> Well I want a better place or just a better way to fall_
> 
> _But one time out of ten, everything is perfect for us all  
>  Well I want a better place or just a better way to fall  
> Here we go ___
> 
> __[Bukowski - Modest Mouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0VpdRYCv3s) _ _

Characterized by its distance to peripheral attractions, South Park sat south of Beckenridge, east of Aspen, and ninety miles from Denver, stuck on the heel of Route 285 like a dog turd on a shoe. The only way you could stumble across the place was to take a wrong turn off I-70--or in life.

There was one main drag, aptly named Main Street. Drive all the way down you eventually cross the train tracks into the sticks where coyotes and meth reigned supreme. Drive all the way up you jump 285 toward Red Hill Pass, a stretch of broken road plagued by car accidents that occurred with such frequency kids thought its named referred to blood instead of geology.

The rest of town splintered off Main Street far as you could tip a cow. Neighborhoods below, business district above, all sodden and gray with snow. There’s a hill we used to sled down. You could see the whole town from the top. I like to imagine it still looks the same as ever--tiny houses bedecked by mountains, frozen in time, like a snowglobe. Wishful thinking. They razed everything to the ground. The mall, the city hall, the bus stop, the school, my own goddamn house. There’s a certain gratification knowing we turned what by all accounts should have been a shrine for the birthplace of Our Glorious Fucktard into a pilgrimage for the resistance. It’s all blocked off. They have orders to shoot anything that moves within a five mile radius. This shack I’ve got here is too close to home for comfort. My henchmen, as I like to call them, keep begging me to move. I can’t do it. 

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, presence makes the heart fucking stop. Everything happened in slow motion. The cold didn’t allow for much movement. You were born into molasses and good luck trying to get unstuck. Drugs and dogma were the main sources of entertainment, the church and bar bona fide holy grounds. If you weren’t a fundamental Christian you were a drunkard or a pothead or a tweaker. These traditions were handed down from father to son. I never had a father, so I was safe from the familial obligation to carry on the torch of mediocrity, but I could see it in my friends. They all fulfilled their destinies one way or another.

The last person to voluntarily immigrate to South Park was my own mother, which just goes to show how abysmal Nebraska was. The rest of the population could be traced back to the miners and farmers who, in searching for 20th century financial stability, cursed their 21st century successors to generational decline. Our local economy rested primarily upon titular dairy cows, after which all varsity teams were named. It was a real disservice to the animals. I’m sure there’s CHSAA records sitting in a bunker somewhere waiting to be incinerated. If your were to hypothetically scrounge them up--revitalize independent statehood via high school athletics--you’d find the South Park Cows at the bottom of every championship bracket going back thirty years. 

The joke was that the only method by which anyone could escape South Park and achieve higher education was to either obtain an athletic or academic scholarship. Except nobody was scouting a shitty mountain basin in bumfuck Colorado. Stan played football. Kyle played basketball. Stan, accepting he was hopeless, abandoned football to focus on music; Kyle, denying he was hopeless, abandoned basketball to focus on Stan. 

Jimmy held creative dreams similar to Stan’s. I never had the heart to tell him it wasn’t gonna happen. Who’s ever heard of a thespian with a stutter? But, you know, I can’t recall any drummers with cerebral palsy. He warmed up to the band pretty quick, regardless. Considered it a stepping stone toward his acting career. All about stage presence, that guy. Look at him now. I guess I’m the idiot.

Don’t even get me started on Leopold. I don’t think he ever saw more than five feet in front of him. His oversight was partly due to the fact his parents lead him around on a carrot tied to a string. If we hadn’t signed the record deal when we did he probably would’ve enlisted in the army like they wanted. He’d have been the perfect fodder for the front lines. Gunned down in the name of a dying country just to be buried under the rubble of San Francisco. 

I was never too worried about schooling. I had an innate ability to line my pockets. Money wasn’t an issue for me. It wasn’t an issue for Kenny, either, but only because his upbringing groomed him into financial submission. After graduation he followed his brother into the mines when they reopened. There was a sign, you know, with how many days it’d been since the last mishap; every time Kenny showed up for his shift it got erased, preemptively. So he became a prostitute for the war effort. He was a real patriot. There’s something Oedipal about it all, in hindsight. I nearly married my mother. 

I’m getting ahead of myself. I do that a lot. Everything’s a big blur. And I don’t get much opportunity to talk about it. Whenever I do, there’s stuff I forgot I’d forgotten. Like how cow shit smells. It’s different from your usual brand of human feces. It used to stink up the whole town, especially on those warm, increasingly not-so-rare days when the ice thawed. I haven’t seen a cow in years. I haven’t ate real meat in longer. It’s nothing but Goop, anymore. They say celebrities have a secret meat market. If Stan and Jimmy are splitting a ribeye right now they can go to hell. 

Anyway, after the recession hit it didn’t matter one way or another whether any of us regretted not going to college. You couldn’t find work anywhere. We were totally financed by Stan’s blow inheritance. Does that surprise you? Let me backtrack. 

When Stan was twelve he immigrated to the foothills of Mosquito Range, where his father, Randy, started a rather successful pot farm which soon became a smokescreen for an even more lucrative coke gamut. None of us kids were to know about that bit. Stan never asked questions; the rest of us followed his lead, tranquilized by an endless supply of cheap, “friend of the family” bud. 

Acres of marijuana far as the eye could see hid kilos of cocaine far as the nose could bleed. There was an old barn in between we commandeered shortly after Stan moved. We swung around the rafters for three years before realizing its true potential the summer after freshman year, when everybody grew into their balls and boobs. It became apparent people were looking for an indiscreet place to get high and fuck. We provided the venue, Randy provided the weed, and a revolving door of older siblings--usually Stan’s sister or Kenny’s brother, who were most definitely screwing--were conscripted into providing the alcohol. 

If you asked any teenager where they’d be Saturday night they’d tell you the Marsh place, at The Barn. It deserved a capital title. It was that legendary. Randy was stoked we were bringing in new customers; Stan’s mom, Sharon, disillusioned by decades of marriage to a guy like that, had no fucks left to give and turned a blind eye to our underage debauchery. 

I had a lot of firsts in The Barn. My first joint. My first kiss. My first blackout. I lost my virginity on a hay bale in the loft. Most of which, I cannot neglect to disclaim, involved Kenny in some fashion. 

You’re sensing the pattern, here. Really, Cartman, you’re asking yourself, your gaze drifting to the null-and-void engagement ring on my finger--after all this time, after everything that’s happened, you’re still hung up on Kenny McCormick? 

Don’t worry. It’s okay. I’m obsessed, I get it. It’s a problem. It’s annoying as shit. I’m derailing the narrative tracks. You asked me for the story. The story of Crimson Dawn. The story of the revolution. But this isn’t that story. This is my story. And I’m going to tell it however the fuck I deem it to be told.

There was a time when my friends weren’t state sanctioned clowns, religious fanatics, or second-rate revolutionaries. When the love of my life hadn’t yet faked his own death and went into hiding. These were the days when America was still America. As Americans, we assumed nothing too bad would happen. The recession would pass. The war would never reach our shores. We still had the naivety to believe in something as dumb as rock and roll--and the gall to think it’d make a difference. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've got three chapters lined up to post. i should probably save them as i write the rest but i'm feeling irresponsible. here's one more exposition bit. actual prose will come next. geographical details have been gleamed from studying the central colorado area on google maps way too much.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _Butters strummed a few licks in Jesus’ name. Jimmy stomped his kick drum, bum-bum-bum. Kenny oozed into discordant, velvety thunder. Stan unhinged his jaw and started screaming. None of them were compatible. Crimson Dawn did not have a sound. It had a dialogue. It was the feeling, the energy. The music reached deep into your gut and disemboweled you. All of us that night were scared. Scared of each other, ourselves, the future. Fear’s greatest enemy isn’t courage, but anger. Courage is conditional. Anger is congenital. Crimson Dawn coaxed it out and stoked the flames._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Working on our night moves  
>  Trying to lose the awkward teenage blues  
> Working on our night moves  
> And it was summertime  
> Sweet summertime, summertime  
> Oh the wonder  
> Felt the lightning  
> We waited on the thunder  
> Waited on the thunder_
> 
> _I woke last night to the sound of thunder  
>  How far off I sat and wondered  
> Started humming a song from 1962  
> Ain't it funny how the night moves  
> When you just don't seem to have as much to lose  
> Strange how the night moves  
> With autumn closing in_
> 
> _[Night Moves - Bob Seger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRFWQoXq4c) _

When I think about those days The Barn is the first thing that comes to mind. The penultimate Barn story would be when our graduating class collectively decided to lay her to rest with the graduation party to end all graduation parties. 

Imagine a hundred eighteen year olds clustered in individual orgies around a dilapidated gambrel barn, clouds of smoke so thick it looked like the building was an effigy set alight. Barn parties never started, per say. There wasn’t the slow trickling-in of bodies. Everyone showed up at once and got down to business so quick passerby would assume we’d been at it for hours. Barn parties weren’t singular events, either. They were the conglomeration of a million smaller ceremonies. Some girl and her beau could’ve been slapping skin and confessing their undying love to each other while two feet away another couple were breaking up for good. I had no inclination to partake in such barbaric festivities, but you can bet your ass I watched them unfold.

The Barn sat in the middle of the farm on a half-acre of gravel. All you had to do was slip into the marijuana plants to hide yourself. It helped that I’m short as fuck--and that Randy knew me by name. He prowled the peripheral on horseback to deter thieves. If anyone besides Stan, Kyle, Kenny or I strayed too far they’d get a shotgun pointed at their face and a reminder that this is a product which has a price, the price being $15 for a gram, $30 for an eighth--throw in ten extra bucks and you can pick it fresh off the vine. No card, only cash, unless you follow him up to the gift shop where you’d undoubtedly be swindled into purchasing a commemorative coffee mug. 

The night was in full swing when I camouflaged myself. Randy was on patrol somewhere behind me, his masquerade betrayed by the echoes of his coked-out sniffles and the clop-clop-clop of his steed. I only heard because I knew to listen, otherwise the music pumping through the speakers in The Barn would’ve drowned out his presence. 

The guys hadn’t gone on yet. This was before Crimson Dawn was Crimson Dawn, when Stan and Butters had to crowbar Kenny and Jimmy off whichever sluts they were pounding and start the show. So, never mind. I retract my previous remark. It was exactly like when they were a real band. The precedent was there. But if you told me the difference--that we’d later perform in amphitheaters instead of Stan’s backyard, that Kenny would be pounding me instead of some nameless chick--I’d have decked you in the face. Then asked what shit you’re smoking, because I want some.

Not that I needed any hallucinogens to bolster the McCormick masturbation material at my disposal. He was a maverick even back then. Not in popular opinion, but my own opinion. I saw in him what the stylists would catch later. He had a look. The majority of it was immaterial. It wasn’t on his body but in the air around it. Everybody in South Park was too deaf, dumb and blind to notice. His sexual conquests were based on skill alone. The dude could eat pussy like I could eat KFC, which is to say with extreme speed and finesse. All the girls wanted him in between his thighs--out of sight, only good for his tongue. Stupid bitches. 

I was hiding from him, really. If I found him on his knees, censored by some girl’s grizzly pubic mound, I would’ve killed myself. It was graduation. It was the end of our youth. It was the start of World War Three. Sex is the antidote to existentialism, and everyone thought they were Kierkegaard that night. Oh, I could’ve put a paper bag over my head and got a girl wasted enough to fuck me, but I’d sooner put a bullet in my brain than put my dick through the meat grinder that is the female genitalia. 

I’d had one girlfriend my whole life. Heidi Turner. Sophomore year. Remember when I said I lost my virginity in The Barn? Bingo. I nearly threw myself off the loft when it was all said and done. The fact that I had to close my eyes just to initiate the ordeal made me realize I was gay; the fact that thinking about Kenny was the only thing that got me through it made me realize I was gay for him. The first revelation would’ve been manageable by itself. I might have even went public with it. But what’s the point if I couldn’t act on it? I don’t have a sexual orientation the way other people do. I have an individual orientation dedicated solely to Kenny McCormick. I let everyone assume I was asexual on nihilistic grounds to cover up the fact I was head over heels for my best friend; unbeknownst to me, Kyle was doing the exact same thing. 

Anyway, I was stalking through a field of marijuana, contemplating my sexuality and potential suicide, when I happened upon the happenings I mentioned earlier. I am speaking of none other than Stan and Wendy Testaburger, the Yoko Ono of Crimson Dawn, and Tweek Tweak and Craig Tucker, South Park’s original faggots. Stan and Wendy were sequestered around The Barn’s left side, going at it Reverse Cowgirl style in a decommissioned tractor. Behind the tractor Tweek and Craig were fighting. Their homosexual radars didn’t even register Stan pistoning Wendy’s snatch not five feet away. These two were the gayest motherfuckers alive. They’d been together longer than Stan and Wendy, which made their explosive breakup that much more exciting to watch. I was witnessing queer history. I don’t know what the hell precipitated their divorce. All I knew was they were in the same position as me--a lonely faggot looking for an available hole. 

Tweek was a loose cannon. His parents owned a coffee shop that got raided when we were fifteen. It turned out they’d been drip-feeding him, and thereby all of South Park, caffeinated meth for years. I don’t know who tipped off the feds. Maybe Craig did, in a misplaced sense of duty. However it went down, the Tweaks went to jail and Tweek went off the deep end. He’d never been the same since. If I had approached him he would’ve gutted me, so I hedged my bets and went in on Craig. 

“Hey,” I said. “Tucker, Craig.” I always said people’s names in reverse. Craig blew right past me into the fields. He always put on a big stoic act to hide the fact he was a total pussy. I followed, figuring I’d be the preferred alternative to Randy’s shotgun, and forced him to a stop. Randy’s schizophrenic whistling neared. Everybody knew he had a penchant to get trigger happy in the dark, after an incident involving a freshman and his left ear or lack thereof. I put my arm around Craig’s shoulders--not an easy feat, considering he was almost a foot taller than me--and shepherded him back toward The Barn, very bro-like. Gentlemanly, almost.

I waved the fat roach I’d been holding under his nose. He snatched it out of my hand, starving for inebriation. He was a lot like Kenny--tall, sharp blue eyes, sort of mysterious--but actually handsome. He didn’t have any surface quality. No scar tissue, no chipped teeth, no broken bones that healed wonky. Everything ran off him, even this major breakup. He moved through life with confidence. Nobody had ever knocked him down and nobody ever would. Keep in mind he was the first guy to come out as gay in South Park. You know what people did? They gave him money. They paid him. I swear to God.

He had this mustache that would’ve made anybody else look like a pedophile. I wanted it wrapped around my admittedly prepubescent-sized cock. “Hey,” I said. “You know what’d be funny? If you blew me.” 

His eyes narrowed. “Fuck you.” 

I laughed. “Fuck me, Craig.” Just a joke--or so he thought. 

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” 

We strolled around surveying The Barn’s endless zoo exhibits, both of us on high alert for blonds. Clyde Donovan started a fight with his longtime friend, Token Black, over their mutual ex-girlfriend Nicole Daniels. Butters, self-proclaimed child of God and the only sober person for miles, was meanwhile holding Nicole’s hair back as she puked. Kyle double-fisted a beer and joint nearby, wallowing in gay misery as Bebe Stevens tried to get into his pants.

Our tour took us up into the loft. I impressed Craig by prying a loose board from the wall, revealing a secret cooler I kept stashed for emergencies. Only Kenny knew about it. It was already missing missing two beers. I cracked open one for myself and one for Craig. We sat and watched Bebe suck Kyle’s dick.

“Kyle’s gay,” I said. 

“Yeah,” Craig said.

“What’s his tell?” 

“There’s no tell. It’s obvious.” 

“To a discerning eye.” 

“Or anybody who isn’t a retard.” Craig crumpled his beer can and lobbed it below, where it pinged off Bebe’s bobbing head. “You know who else I know is gay?”

“Who?” I asked. 

He pulled me down into the shadows. His lips were soft. His mustache tickled. He had the perfect amount of body, skinny but not bony, covered in a layer of fat that didn’t pudge anywhere and made him soft on impact. His fingers were long, the ideal length for playing piano or scissoring my asshole. His penis looked like the template for a beginner’s dildo. Polite but not prude, girthy but not intimidating, I took it on my hands and knees. I imagined he was twenty pounds lighter, that he had belt buckle scars flapping in between his shoulder blades.

He came inside of me and gasped Tweek’s name. I jerked myself off and bit my tongue on Kenny’s. We separated under the implicit agreement to never speak of this to anyone. Sorry, Craig, if you’re still alive. Cat’s out of the bag. Cock’s out of the condom.

He ran off to go find Tweek. A shotgun fired minutes later. I almost thought he went and got Randy to kill him. He didn’t, but I wouldn’t have cared if he did. I didn’t care about anything. I felt worse than ever. Worse than when I fucked Heidi Turner. 

Somebody was yelling at me. I told them to fuck off. They started climbing up the ladder. Kenny’s head popped over the edge of the loft.

“Dude,” was all he said. 

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand to see him. All the pictures of him still in black market circulation, the band posters and runway shots, they don’t hold a candle to how he looked back then. The image curated by the record company and the model agencies wasn’t him--it was a product, a farce, his oddities refurbished into commodities. 

He had a weak chin and small jaw; the rest of his skull compressed into a hollow ovoid, cheekbones overshadowed by his thin, protruding nose, the bridge knocked askew by an errant baseball bat during a little league game. He looked permanently half-asleep, eyes the color of a rainy day, teeth the color of acerbic piss. He’d attempted to scramble his features with a bunch of facial piercings that only exacerbated the issue. Growing out his hair didn’t help, either. Mousy at the roots, blond at the ends, all natural and incumbent on the season. He was like Rapunzel, if Rapunzel was a male hooker trapped in a trailer park. He was the hottest shit I’d ever seen. Judge me all you want. I’m easily bored. I need stimulation. Kenny’s face was always changing. That’s why they wanted him to model. In a world where anybody can be beautiful ugliness is a virtue. 

I was laying there, pants around my ankles, cum still leaking out of my ass. Kenny heaved himself up onto the loft and laid down beside me. “Where ya been?” he asked. He omitted words wherever possible and cut them in half whenever they were necessitated. He wasn’t a talker. He was selectively mute, growing up. 

“I fucked Craig,” I told him. “Him and Tweek broke up or something.” 

“Oh,” he said. He didn’t let me know till later that made him jealous. I would’ve appreciated the information at the time. “Any good?” 

Kenny was the only person I told I was gay. He knew everything about me. Plus he was a complete whore. I didn’t risk judgment coming from him. “It was okay. What sloppy ham sandwich were you fucking?” 

“Sharon.” He meant Stan’s mom. 

I punched his shoulder. “Shut up, dude.” 

“Shelly, too,” he added--Stan’s sister. “All three of us. Might’ve got Randy in the mix, if I had the time.” 

“What about Stan?” 

“He’s busy with Wendy.” 

The idea of Stan’s dick up Wendy’s vagina combined with the nascent memory of Craig’s dick up my ass was enough to make me gag. “I’m gonna hang myself.” 

Kenny was an expert Eric Cartman decoder. He saw right through me. “Maybe if you weren’t sneaking off and fucking assholes you’d be in a better mood.” 

“Sorry.” If my apologies were a rarefied currency, he was stinking rich. 

He sat up and lit a cigarette. Moonlight bounced off his piercings all netted with flyway hairs. “There’s a party down there, you know.” 

I commenced the mighty task of wrangling my cum-encrusted jeans over my thighs. “I’m trying my best to avoid it.” 

“Are you avoiding me?”

“No,” I lied. 

He unfurled a ribbon of smoke above my head. “Whatever.” 

Stan came lumbering toward us, his fly unzipped, sporting a loaded condom. Not literally, but that’s how I envisioned him in my mind’s eye. “Kenny,” he called. Somebody must’ve told him I was up in the loft. If anyone was looking for Kenny they just asked where I was. 

He stuck his shoulders out into the open air to facilitate better conversation. “The fuck you want?” 

“My bassist!”

“Gimme a sec!” 

Stan squinted past him. “Is Cartman up there?” 

I emphatically shook my head. Kenny didn’t see, but he didn’t have to, the angel. “Was earlier, but I can’t find him.” 

“Weird. Clyde said he was with Craig.” 

“Clyde got knocked cold. He’s seeing funny.” 

“Well, come down. Let’s play the new song. People wanna hear it.” 

Kenny brandished his half-finished cigarette. “When I’m done!” 

Stan waved him off. “Hurry up.” 

Kenny leaned back, his forehead red with blood. “You gonna hide up here for the show?” 

“It is the better view,” I said, referring to him, right there, right then. 

He expelled smoke through his pierced nostrils. “Loser. What’re you gonna do when we make it big, huh? Mope on the sidelines?” 

“Probably,” I said, and he was exactly right. 

He stubbed his cigarette out on the toe of my shoe. He stared at me, pupils blown, lips parted, his hand lingering on my ankle. I could taste the smoke on his breath. I played connect the dots with his summer freckles. He wanted to kiss me. It was a fleeting thought I didn’t let myself believe. 

I think about what would’ve happened if he had pressed me further, or if I had been honest with him. Neither of us knew we felt the same way about each other. Maybe our relationship could’ve formed when we were both innocent and unchanged. Or maybe we were doomed from before the start. It’s not good to think about stuff like that, but I can’t help but wonder. 

The moment passed because we let it die. I watched him shimmy down the ladder, gracefully graceless. We wouldn’t get our next chance for another three years, and by then he was already slipping through my fingers. 

The loft had a sliding door that looked outside of The Barn. I pushed it open, exposing myself to the midnight breeze. A pulley system was rigged above the door, intended to transport haybales. I deliberated whether or not to actually hang myself while the guys set up their gear in the dirt, two pawn shop guitar amps and a storm generator to leech the farm’s power grid. Kenny stood off to the side, his bass swung around his back, smoking another cigarette. He turned in my direction. I waved. The cherry between his lips bounced with a gap-toothed smile. I decided to stay alive. 

A crowd coalesced. Kyle limped forward. Wendy sauntered toward Stan. Craig stood tall and alone. Tweek ping-ponged elsewhere. Nicole rallied with a second wind and tenth beer. Bebe inserted herself between Clyde and Token. Randy loomed in the distance. And I sat above them all, watching, listening, observing. 

Butters strummed a few licks in Jesus’ name. Jimmy stomped his kick drum, bum-bum-bum. Kenny oozed into discordant, velvety thunder. Stan unhinged his jaw and started screaming. None of them were compatible. Crimson Dawn did not have a sound. It had a dialogue. It was the feeling, the energy. The music reached deep into your gut and disemboweled you. All of us that night were scared. Scared of each other, ourselves, the future. Fear’s greatest enemy isn’t courage, but anger. Courage is conditional. Anger is congenital. Crimson Dawn coaxed it out and stoked the flames. 

Clyde Donovan sprained his ankle moshing. Tweek and Craig’s lover quarrel turned into a knockout brawl. Randy got off his high horse and joined the fray--rumor has it someone found him and Bebe together the next morning. The shitty amps were soon overtaken by human noise. Yelling, fighting, cheering. The music was an afterthought. The music was a vehicle. It spread through the earthbound bodies up to me in The Barn. The rafters vibrated. The loft shook. I leaned outside and held onto the pulley with both hands so I wouldn’t get caught in the undertow. A military helicopter cut across the stars. Nobody noticed but me. I still don’t know where it was headed. I think I might have been the first person in the nation to have glimpsed the extent of the upcoming conflict.

The song the guys played would end up becoming the lead single off their first album. The rest of their set was a bunch of lame ass covers. I stuck around to watch Kenny play his favorite Fugazi bassline, then rolled back into the loft and emptied my secret cooler. 

I fell asleep--through sheer willpower, not fatigue--and woke up to find him laying next to me. Face-down, the corners of his lips scabbed with pussy juice, his denim vest discarded to air out the sweat percolating on his notched spine. He’d pulled the ladder up to afford us some privacy, so I felt safe examining his scars with my fingertips. I understand why he hated them, but I kind of liked it in a sick way. He had the surface quality Craig Tucker lacked. He covered it up later with the famous back piece he got in Las Vegas. That’s when he started armoring himself against the world, and against me. 

I played it cool when he woke up. We dropped down from the loft and sojourned to the main house in search of survivors. Stan and Kyle were on the porch nursing their hangovers with coffee. Stan got some for Kenny and I. The four of us sat in silence, the original locus of Crimson Dawn. Not the band, but the six bastards that mechanized it. We grew up with Butters and Jimmy, but not alongside them. Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and me--that was the real shit. 

The sun hadn’t come up yet. People talk about the golden hour between day and dusk. The crimson hour is between night and dawn. It bled across the farm, purple to red, killing shadows in its wake. We didn’t have much time. That was the last night before everything changed. Once the sun showed itself it’d be a new day. A new life. We had no idea what we were up against. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to find a balance between cartman's speaking voice and the necessary prose. suspend ur disbelief with the dialogue...or maybe imagine him impersonating everyone, lol. more to come soon. these chapters are pretty quick so i'm churning them out fast. happy quarantine. 
> 
> ps: added a [playlist](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eklMxpDtNakhxUC5E1nPv3v0KlV51q6mQ_5QWeV6kFQ/edit?usp=sharing) in the summary. i'll update it with every chapter.


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